I made the BIG move

I have finally made the move to Cali…For all of you out there who didn’t know I was moving, or knew but didn’t know why, here's my story. Back in May, Alex was contacted by a company called IMVU about a job being on the team that manages servers. It was very intriguing to him, but he didn’t say anything to me about it until about a week later. The second I heard about the job, I was so excited for Alex. But this was only the beginning of the process for Alex getting the Job. Not long after he applied for the job, he had his first phone screen. A few weeks later, he had a second screen that got an in-person interview. IMVU flew him down the first week of June. Alex’s interview lasted the whole day with multiple people interviewing him. While Alex was in California I was home alone and couldn’t tell anyone he was gone. We wanted to keep the job hush-hush until we knew what was going to happen. But of course they loved him and offered a job to him a few days later. His new job started August 1^st in Mountain View, California and I had to stay in Eugene for 6 weeks longer to finish up my Job.

Those 6 weeks were very hard, but it made us appreciate each other even more. At week 3, I had a peeping tom at my house and it was the scarcest night of my life. For the next couple weeks, I stayed at a friend’s house. No way in the world was I going to be sleeping at the house alone anymore. The next weekend, my love surprised me with a quick visit…it was a wonderful day being with him again. My last week in Oregon, I spent it in Portland with my family. It was so great to see friends that I never get to see. Finally, last Thursday was the big day for moving out of the condo! The 6 weeks of packing up a house and being apart from Alex was finally over…I got a moving truck and my parents came down. Alex's friend Jimmy came over to help pack up the truck. My cousin and great aunt came to clean the condo. It was a great day of team work. After a very LONG and HOT day and after the wonderful helpers went home, my dad and I discovered we had to repack part of the truck because we ran out of room. We were so tired by this point, but we had to get it done. We were in bed by 9 because we were so beat and we had to get up at 5:30AM.

The BIG day was here…MOVING DAY! We got up early and headed to my condo to pick up my cat and a few more things that needed to be packed in the truck. We discovered we needed to make even more room. My dad had to repack part of the truck again! We were all so tired already and we still had a very long day of driving ahead of us. At about 9:30 am we were ready to hit the road. We were running about 3 hours behind. My mom and dad were in the moving truck and I drove my car with my kitty as my copilot. We made very few stops during the drive down to Sunnyvale. I really just wanted to get there before it got too late. Most of the trip, I tried to stay pretty close to the moving truck. This meant I had to drive 65 mph when the speed limit was 75. It was painful having to drive so slowly. Luckily the last 2 hours of the trip I got to go faster because I had to get my cat to the Apartment. He was having a meltdown being in his kennel so long. Right as I was driving into the bay area, the sky was filled with lightning and rain. It was the craziest lighting I had ever seen. It was 9 pm when I pulled into Sunnyvale. My parents arrived about 30 minutes later with the truck. Alex had some of his coworkers come over to help. They were all good sports about carrying everything up 3 flights of stairs. The truck was finally unpacked around midnight. The next night, I got a great surprise knock at my door. My sister and brother-in-law came to see us from the LA area! It was so good to see them and have my whole family together for a day. We all went to the Google headquarters and took pictures. It was a fun day.

I have now been here for 5 days. I have to keep reminding myself that this is now my home and I’m not going back to the condo in Eugene. I really like the area so far. It’s full of so much culture. I have seen mostly Asian and Indian people here. For the first time in my life, I am the minority and it’s perfectly fine with me. Also, I have noticed that the majority of cars are very nice. A lot more women are carrying really nice purses and dress really well. It’s definitely much different here than Eugene. I got use to seeing woman walking around with no bras and people on the corners with signs in Eugene. HA HA. I look forward to exploring and learning how to get around. The streets here are very confusing. Streets change names, highways that go nowhere…It's going to take me awhile to learn how to get around. But I’m up for the challenge. The weather here is perfect. It’s in the 70’s for 6 months of the year. My fall doesn’t start till end of November and winter is only for 2 maybe 3 months. Winter here is like in the 50’s. I think it will be great living in a warmer less rainy climate.

I will try really hard to keep my blog updated with new adventures that Alex and I go on. I want to show you all what our new apartment looks like but I’m going to wait till I have it all put together. What I will show you today is pictures of our fun at Google and the grounds at the apartment.

Love you all so much!
Em

They let me bring my Red Tiger over the Cali boarder!

The view out our bedroom window..I love this tree

We have a great pool that I can swim in because they don't use chlorine!

Alex on a Google bike

My sister,me,Alex,and brother in law @ Google

All the desserts behide me represent code name for the different software version for android.

                                   Cupcake,Donut,Eclair,Froyo,Gingerbread,honeycomb